Any of you guys with older boats had any gel coat work done?I was going to have some chips and scratches fixed but I was informed that there is no way they can even come close to matching the old gel.Anyone with any experience on this? thanks

east tx skier

01-28-2005, 01:30 PM

They used to have the color key on here (maybe it was the old board). I don't recall how far back it went, but it was at least to 91.

Brn85ss

01-28-2005, 01:35 PM

I went to spectrum colors web sight and they don't have the key for my year boat.I thought this would be no big deal,guess I was wrong.

east tx skier

01-28-2005, 01:50 PM

Where are the repairs? In cases where the repair was in a spot not likely to be noticed, I just told the glass guy to match it as close as he could. In both cases, the repair was all but invisible. It was the white gel coat, which is rather tough to match, or so I've been told.

BriEOD

01-28-2005, 02:20 PM

Mine is the shop right now. The guy told me he could do it and it would look good. I'm not having anything major done. Their was a big scratch on the right side that was on it when I bought it, 2 chips on the transome from ski's smacking and I'm getting a new bimini top so I had him clean that up. I'll post some photos when its done. The guy had about 50 boats in his yards and he came recommended so we'll see.

Ben

01-28-2005, 02:21 PM

See who your dealer recommends. We had some stress crackes fixed at the end of last season, so I haven't really seen it in the summer sun. It did look ok in october sun though. 1994 model.

By the way, get out the checkbook....

Brn85ss

01-28-2005, 02:34 PM

I have acouple of chips on the keel that are into the fiberglass,the last owner which is a friend of mine had no problem beaching the boat.But he was anal about the rest of the boat.People are funny.Anyway it needs to be fixed,it's not in a visable area maybe I will tackle it myself.

whitedog

01-28-2005, 04:33 PM

Also try checking with body shops that specialize in fiberglass work. Often times they can color match gel coat the same way they match older paint. A shop in Rockton Il does it every day. Seldom do you see the repair if the shop does not have a rookie do it.

BrianM

01-28-2005, 04:59 PM

I had a bit of work done to my boat this past summer. I called around to all of the boat shops around town and asked who they used. The same name came up a bunch of times so I took it there. I would suggest you do the same.

I just had some scratches fixed on mine this past summer. Nothing that was completely through the gel coat. The guy that fixed mine actually wet sanded them all out. One of them was very large and pretty deep (looked like some dock damage that the prior owner did) it was a little larger than a doller bill in a crazy zig zag loopy pattern like it had rubbed up against a bolt on the dock for a few minutes if you get what I mean. All but two small specks of that one are gone. Unless you know exactly where to look you would never know. The other scratch was from the pvc quide pole coming off of the trailer. I didn't notice it and it put a nice 18" scratch along the side. That one was also sanded out and I can't even find where it was. A couple of other small 2" or so scratches also removed.

The guy that did the repairs did tell me that if he had to spray gel on the colored (teal) section of the boat that it might not match perfect because of 17 years of fading but he said it would be darn close. He told me the white was no problem and he would be able to get that perfect.

I guess to make a long story short what I am saying is make a lot of calls and get a lot of reccomendations because the good guys are out there and they can fix darn near anything. I consider myself lucky. One of the other members of my club had some work done before me by a different person and the results were less than good.

BarefootWt

01-29-2005, 06:45 PM

There is a Gel Coat kit available where you can mix colors together and get close. This works for smaller repairs - and you are patient and diligent you can get really close. If you want the kit details, let me know and I'll pull the info off the box. Good luck.